Countdown to New Strategy

Well, I performed a large proportion of my purge this week as I prepare my portfolio for a revised strategy.

I sold all my FSC, GPS, TLM, BBEP, KLIC and TPVG. I will also selling (within a year) my RIOM, TCMCF, TSL and NADL.  I will also likely pare back my GTAT and GNW positions over the next year. So with my sales, I am 45% cash.

On October 1st, I will commence the new strategy. It will be very similar to my MFI strategy, where I buy five stocks four times a year and hold for a year.  This will be identical, expect for two points: (1) the way I pick my stocks will be from the official MFI screen, with a market cap greater than $600 million and a dividend yield of 2.5% or greater and (2) I will randomly pick from those stocks (with the caveat that I can exclude one from the randomizer - to get rid of a PDLI or GNI type stock).  Oh I guess the other difference is that I will be putting more money into this than MFI.  Not a ton more, but I am thinking 20% more.  So this is a big vote of confidence from me for magic formula investing.

All my analysis shows that over time this should be a successful strategy, even though it will include some stocks that are out of favor (if done today, I would be picking from RGR, RTN, GME, CA, PDLI, CSCO, COH and HRB).  You will not need to ask me why I picked the stocks I picked, it is just random from the screen.

I see where GTAT has announced a call the week of September 29th for a
"Business update".  I am not sure what to expect. I am hopeful that they will confirm their guidance and suggest that everything in hunky dory, but to be frank it could just as easily be the other way.  This is not a stock right now that I would recommend to widows and orphans.

My portfolio continues to struggle in September.  A the end of August, I was up 15.3% versus the R3K being up 10.2%.  That lead has shrunken in a hurry and I am now up 9.6% versus 8.8%.  I am not panicking, but it is admittedly less fun to watch your overall values drop as opposed to go up.  But I have a plan, I have thought about my stocks and am happy with what I own today.  Could I be wrong? Of course, as I often say, I am just a guy with a spreadsheet.